Visiting Japan a year after her slaying, the parents and sisters of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker voiced disappointment March 24 that the fugitive sought in her killing remains at large.

Although "extremely distressed" that Tatsuya Ichihashi was not captured immediately, Bill Hawker, Lindsay's father, emphasized at a Tokyo news conference that "we have not come here to criticize the Japanese police."

"He murdered my daughter, and he might murder again," the father asserted, suggesting the apparently stalled investigation endangers the public at large.

The body of 22-year-old Hawker was found buried in gardening soil in a detached bathtub on the balcony of Ichihashi's condo in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, on March 26 last year.

A barefoot Ichihashi eluded capture when police came to his home that day to investigate the disappearance of Hawker, an English teacher with the Nova language-school chain.